Thousand yard season? Shit. I would double that if I decided to work hard this year. 10 touchdowns? Maybe by the halfway mark, if I didn’t take a breather on running up the score a few times.
Sky was the limit when you got talent like I got talent. And the world was gonna recognize that soon. I may not have gone to the biggest football school around, but I could ball. I could ball hard. And I had the stats to back it up.
And not just that, I actually went to class too. Graduated early in electrical engineering on top of playing D1 football in the Pac-12, which was probably soon to be the Pac-11. Nothing was gonna hold me back anymore - just had to figure out which team was willing to take me, and I’d be off on the next plane.
Though maybe I’d stop in Las Vegas first and get my party on, post-draft day style.
“Ready for the draft?”
Oh yeah, she was still here. Bianca. “Yeah, I will be. Got a few hours to kill before then.” I didn’t look at her. No need to.
I could hear her smile, though, as she ran her hand over my huge shoulder, admiring the tattoos. She licked her lips loudly, and I knew she wanted more.
I wasn’t really feeling it anymore; I had more important things to do, so I took the high road, such as it was, and cut her off just as she opened her mouth “Yeah, I got some stuff I gotta take care of before I head out.”
“Can I stick around?” She moved her hand lower, down my stomach toward my crotch. “We could,” she swallowed, “keep playing some more while you get ready.”
“That sounds nice, but I really gotta concentrate.”
“Oh, ok.” She was clearly dejected, but she got up from the bed and started looking around for her clothes. I looked around the room, grinning, seeing parts of her outfit from the night before hanging from the strangest places.
We’d had some fun last night, she and I. But now it was time for her to go. I watched her get dressed, not saying a word.
“Sure I can’t stick around?” She asked when she was all set to leave, one last try. I’d seen a lot of hail mary passes in my high school and college career, and caught many a touchdown from them, but this was one of the most valiant I could remember in a while.
“Some other time, maybe,” I said, hollow, “I got a lot going on today.”
“Ok. Good lucky today.” She turned around and left the hotel room, closing the door softly on her way out.
I lay back in bed and sighed, investigating the ceiling. That was a little awkward, I don’t know why she didn’t get the hint sooner.
Shit, I hadn’t checked my phone since I had woken up! Usually it was the first thing I did, but I must have gotten distracted by draft day sneaking up on me like this.
As if I hadn’t been preparing for it every day since I was 10.
I found my phone where I’d tossed it the night before in the hurry to get my clothes off and get with that girl, whatever her name was, and thumbed the screen, scrolling through all the messages from my friends, teammates, coaches, and more than a few of the girls I’d slept with in the last few years.
It took a lot of scrolling to see all the messages.
I replied to a couple messages, but decided to save most of them for after the draft. Once I knew which team I was in gonna play for, I’d have a lot more to say.
A bunch of messages were from my agent, but I didn’t really pay attention to them. He was a stodgy old guy, who wasn’t really into technology. Still, he was a shark when it came to making deals, and I knew that I was in good hands.
The league’s best new receiver needed to be making big, big cash. And not just from my contract, from endorsements too. I had expensive tastes, and now was the time to indulge in all of them.
The question was, which team would take me? Yeah, yeah, I knew all about how my draft stock had fallen in the last few months. All those stories in the papers and on social media about me, getting into trouble, had all these coaches thinking I had character concerns.
What the fuck were character concerns, anyway? All they needed to know was that I showed up to practice, showed up to the games, and I caught the fucking football.
Everything else was my business and no one else’s.
Yeah, so I liked to party it up. Yeah, so I liked to drink a little on the weekends, when I didn’t have a game. I was just like any other college guy. Except on Saturdays, instead of watching from the stands, I caught touchdowns. And they wanted to tell me what I couldn’t do with my time?
Fuck that.
And yeah, I liked girls. I liked to sleep with a lot of girls. So what? Who fucking cared, except maybe their fathers. I laughed to myself, remembering the look on the Dean’s face when he stormed into my room one morning and found his daughter in bed with me. I’d never forget it.
And I guessed he wouldn’t either.